


So Quite New a Thing

by damnremus (malivolus)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Time, M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:41:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3676047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malivolus/pseuds/damnremus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A portrait of the artist as a young man, as compiled by the bloke himself and some mates he picked up along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Quite New a Thing

**Author's Note:**

> The summary of this fic is based on the title of James Joyce's novel "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," which, I will admit, I have not read. I'm not a fan of Joyce's work overall, but I found his title too charming and clever to resist. Here's to hoping you enjoy the oddity to take place in the next few thousand characters!

The stars were brilliant. They hung there in the sky, burning, burning, burning – but they weren’t. It was more than that, in that moment, on that rooftop. Those stars seemed so much more than burnt bits of the galaxy hanging against a midnight background. Rather, the night sky seemed a black dome, pierced in select, sweeter places by that light streaming so brightly down to Sirius as he hid.

It had been approximately eleven and a half months since Sirius Black had walked about the halls of Grimmauld Place. It had been approximately five months since the Potters took him in and it had been approximately one month since Sirius took up the second bedroom to the right, just past the washroom, on the third floor of the Potters’ home. And now Sirius Black sat atop a roof he had been kindly ( _kindly_ ) asked not to climb, trying very hard to figure out how exactly he felt about this situation he found himself in.

It was rather often that Sirius found himself in situations. Jelly legs jinxes in the Great Hall, stuck breathing under his breath as one of the Hufflepuff prefects shoved his tongue down Ravenclaw’s, praying to Merlin Slughorn didn’t check up on his stock of Etruscan dragon scales within the next two days, and running like a bat out of hell and cursed halfway to Tuesday up the corridor to dislodge Peter from the chandelier before McGongall happened upon him. Yes, Sirius was quite accustomed to situations at this point in his seventeen years. But this situation made something in Sirius feel unlike he ever had before and Remus insisted he think on it when he wrote that week.

The larger problem – yet unaddressed between Remus and Sirius because Sirius’s owl was a bit old and a tad fucked with navigation, leading their conversations to be stilted and often far scarcer than Sirius would like – was rather that Sirius had no time to think about the Potters’ while he lived under their roof. It seemed wholly insulting to ponder what really he was doing with his life and his family and his best mate’s parents while they served him tea and patted his cheek. Or while they climbed the stairs to his room and knocked gently on his door, asking for his dirty laundry and _for Merlin’s sake, Sirius, please let me wash your bedsheets, you’ve been sleeping on the same ones since you and James stepped off the Express and I simply will not have dirty bedsheets in my house … you never know who else may be sleeping on them._ Or while they chatted about the Harpies and their chances for the World Cup this year, or the degnoming of the garden that afternoon, or the sort of family Sirius never knew he was related to, the sorts of faces that existed only as ash where he came from, and the sort Sirius had desperately pleaded a Greater Something for once upon a time in his life. The thought of questioning the Potters’ generosity while he pressed kisses to their cheeks and slept in their bed and set his own place at the dinner table made Sirius feel suddenly and overwhelmingly nauseous.

And so Sirius stole to the shingles. He felt there as if he lived less under the Potter’s roof, but more under the same stars they did. He thought Remus would find that notion horribly romantic and would probably scribble it in that god awful notebook he insisted on carrying everywhere. It was just a matter of time and place before Sirius set that thing into the lake.

It wasn’t so much that he didn’t enjoy being with the Potters’. That was rather the opposite of it all, really. Sirius loved the Potters’. Loved their muffin tin, always full, and loved their set tea time and loved their house, sitting on the edge of some muggle farmland, always bathed in yellows and golds and, sometimes, earthy reds and pinks and brilliant purples that bruised the sky for mere moments before they passed. Sirius had forgotten that Mother Nature liked to paint with such colors. Or perhaps he had never learned at all.

Sirius did love living with the Potters’. And he loved the Potters’ themselves too: Mr. Potter with his quiet, but constant, nature and Mrs. Potter, always equipped with an innuendo and a sweet sort of smile and James, who Sirius would not even begin to describe for it could take hours or days to put down into coherent thought all he felt for and of James. Sirius loved them. He did.

It was just this itch under his skin that refused to soothe itself away no matter how often he and James snuck down into the kitchen late at night for ice cream and boxed, muggle macaroni and cheese. Sirius couldn’t help feel, even out here, with the wind knotting his hair about itself and the stars shining down and the hazy, summer air filling his lungs with each breath, that he wasn’t meant to be with the Potters’. He couldn’t help feeling as if these beautiful, amazing, bloody generous people were taking him in and he couldn’t help feeling as if he wasn’t wanted, _needed_ , here. And maybe he was wrong, because the Potters’ sure as hell had gone out of their way to make Sirius feel as welcomed and home and wanted as possible. But he felt, above all else, like an inconvenience.

The Potters’ had done everything in their power to make it seem as if Sirius had always occupied the second bedroom to the right, just past the washroom, on the third floor of the Potters’ home, had always been a brother to James, had always sat in the chair between James and Mr. Potter for tea, had always come in from flying with insects smashed against every flat surface of his body, had always been a part of their household, but the Potters’ were only human, after all. And Sirius noticed every moment Mrs. Potter began to pull three plates from the cabinet. He noticed when Mr. Potter left the muggle funnies on James’s plate in the morning. He noticed his picture newly hung here and there on the wall, conversing with James’s, which hung next to it in a faded frame that Sirius felt very silly envying. He noticed the ease with which the Potters’ moved about their home and the mark where the dinner table had previously touched the wall. Sirius noticed and it hurt in some stupid, childish part of himself.

These, Sirius decided, would not be thoughts he shared with Remus. The boy was overall too good to hear the stupid, stupid way Sirius’s heart betrayed his mind in every passing moment.

***

Sirius woke the next morning to the scent of bacon and fried eggs meandering up the stairway. Being a firm devotee to all things grease, Sirius rose with the sort of vigor he displayed for little else and bothered himself only to push on his slippers before he headed for the kitchen.

“Mrs. Potter, if you weren’t so terribly keen on your husband, we’d be halfway through our marriage vows, I’ll have you know,” Sirius mumbled into his breakfast moments later, stabbing his fork into the golden eggs and soggy bacon with the kind of relish one usually reserved for very fine wine or perhaps a good wank every now and again.

“Sirius, my dear boy,” she smiled, pushing her large glasses further up her nose as she rested her elbows on the table in front of him. “You’d never be able to handle me.”

“’M tryin’ t’ eat,” James, half comatose, muttered into his own breakfast.

“Oh, James, do take the stick out of your ass. There’s no harm in flirting with handsome men. You would do to remember that fact lest you be left out of some truly amazing nights on the town.”

“Mum,” James said, raising his head and leveling his mother with one of the most compelling dirty looks Sirius had seen since he called muggle practices “worthy of study” at Christmas dinner.

“More bacon, Jimmy?”

A tap sounded through the kitchen, piercing and sudden enough for Sirius to drop his fork loudly against his plate. Turning, he took in the sight of two birds, including his own, tawny barn owl, scratching for entrance. Large letters hung delicately from each respective talon and Sirius thought he glimpsed a much smaller, much more important envelope hiding behind the others.

“Ah, your Hogwarts letters! Early this year, I see.” Mrs. Potter meandered to the window, unlatched the pane, and grazed the backs of the birds as they nudged into the room. Sirius’s Barnard hopped to him with an eye squarely on the pocket of his pajamas, no doubt after the treats Sirius liked to give him after he delivered a letter from Remus.

Plucking one out and holding it aloft, Sirius began to untangle the mass of twine around Barnard’s leg one handed. Damn Dumbledore or whatever house elf who sent these letters out for tying it right atop Remus’s without regard for how dearly Sirius wished to stuff the latter into his boxers for later perusal.

“Bollocks. We need new cauldrons for potions this year, Mum.” The arrival of his letter seemed to bring James slightly closer to a conscious and functioning state, sitting up straighter in his chair and beginning to run his fingers through his hair unconsciously as he poured over the contents.

Sirius managed to unravel the lengths of twine and shove Remus’s letter unceremoniously into his pants before the screeching began. Quite honestly, it reminded Sirius of the time they had managed to dye all of Slytherin’s hair bright, puke green in tribute to their esteemed and noble house colors. The screams of Narcissa alone woke Sirius for weeks with ringing in his ears.

“Mum,” James began, sounding utterly out of breath. “ _Mum_.” He held out a letter Sirius had not received in his own package and shook more violently than Sirius had, perhaps, ever seen him, which truly said quite a bit about his state.

“Padfoot?” His voice was steadily climbing in volume and Sirius scrambled off the chair as James turned to him with wide and indecipherable eyes. “Padfoot? _Padfoot_?”

Sirius began edging for the door as James began to match Narcissa’s pitch near perfectly.

“Is Dumbledore mad?” Mrs. Potter stood crunching the parchment under her tight grip.

“Honey, what’s all the – ”

“ _Head Boy_.”

Sirius’s eyes whipped back to James so quickly, he was sure he’d have whiplash for weeks. Head Boy? No, it couldn’t be. Dumbledore would never give James¸ Marauder and Mischief Maker, a title like Head Boy.

“He’s mad,” Mr. Potter said, clinging to the door jam, still hanging halfway into the room.

“ _Head Boy_ ,” James muttered to himself and collapsed into his mother’s arms, pressing his face firmly into the generous give of her breast and closing his owl-wide eyes finally when her hands came to rest in his hair. Mr. Potter crossed the kitchen in three great strides, wrapping himself around his wife and son.

“So proud of you, my boy,” Mrs. Potter whispered, just loud enough for Sirius to hear as he stood by the staircase, in James’s hair.

Sirius turned. At the top of the stairs, he glanced back and wondered how he had managed to take advantage of such wonderful and perfect people.

***

The brick was beginning to well and truly irritate Sirius’s palm. It scraped and slid across the rough surface, most likely breeding in thousands of years of grime and dirt, burrowing past his skin and entering his bloodstream and traveling all the way to his heart where it would root and kill him in an awfully slow, painful manner.

All these things considered, the bird had these spikes on her belt and Sirius had felt so strange holding her ribs in his hand as they swooned under his touch. Every part of her curled in unexpected and wholly unfamiliar ways, as every bird’s did, and Sirius simply didn’t feel like placing his hands anywhere beyond where his left was currently cupping her jaw. His palm remained scratched raw against the wall.

“ _Sirius_.” The bird whispered against his mouth and Sirius pulled back far enough to see the way her eyelashes brushed the apples of her cheeks and her lips stretched in a crooked smile. Before term had ended, Sirius would have found that quirk of her mouth endlessly sexy, but summer seemed to have clawed into him and altered the potionwork in his brain because right now it seemed to Sirius that this bird had a perfectly lovely smile, but not a particularly stunning one. Not the kind of smirk that sent blood to his cock with heady pulses that roared in his ears and made his chest beat fast and breathy. Certainly not the kind of mouth he made it a point to wander away from Prongs to pursue.

“I have to go.” Sirius pushed himself away, immediately pressing his fingers to the reddened skin of his palm. He stood in front of the bird, tall enough that they were eye level even as she leaned against the exterior wall of Scribbulus Writing Instruments, and Sirius couldn’t help the flush that flooded his cheek as she leveled him with a raised eyebrow. “Er, thanks.”

Behind him, Sirius could hear a faint chuckle before the bird boomed after him: “Any time, mate!”

Somewhere in the gentle pound of his shoes against the pavement, Sirius became lost, not so much in the Alley, but in his head. Shops and their keepers passed by his vision with the sort of urgency leaves partook when they fell to the Earth come autumn. Remus was always waxing on about autumn. It was his favorite season, so he claimed: shorter nights, the sort of sweater weather that didn’t purple your knuckles in the morning with cold, and the beginning of term. Hot tea in the afternoon hours was less of a madman’s death wish and more of a practicality. Madame Pinch had new releases in the library that Remus liked to work his way through while he and Peter sat in the quidditch stands for James’s practices.

_Merlin’s pants_ – Sirius stopped short, the two old men behind him grumbling about youth these days, and ducked into a nearby alcove before he had the chance to cut off some other, poor civilian. He, Sirius Black, was slowly, undeniably losing touch with reality. First, he’d stepped away from some bird who’d seemed more than willing and happy to neck with him for however long he liked. Hell, he might have had the chance to get off with that bird had he stayed.

Sirius was, by all intents and purposes, a virgin, but that didn’t mean he was particularly fond of the title. It was just that no bird seemed to hold his attention long enough to actually round second base and head for third. James had, many times. With his house so close to that muggle village, James often reneged to town, where he picked up birds like he carried seed.

Peter, in no surprise at all, was fairly well acquainted with women. He had a way with them that Sirius, Remus, and even James lacked. Peter possessed that outstanding quality of humor, the real, honest kind, the sort that didn’t rely on dirty jokes and backhanded compliments. It was of no real worth, at least according to Peter himself, but Sirius envied it nonetheless.

Remus, on the other hand, had a rather prolific career as a poof. After he had come out, something seemed set off in him. Maybe it was the moon, pulling tricks on his new found freedom. But Sirius himself thought Remus had just spent far too long pretending. It felt nice wallow in yourself after locking it up for years, after stitching your mouth shut and holding yourself together with spellotape. Sirius, of all people, understood this urge.

Sirius had willingly walked away from a willing witch and he hadn’t a clue why. He’d taken to the streets of Diagon Alley with no direction in mind, a highly dangerous undertaking in the wizarding world, where places only existed in fixed locations when one expected them to. He’d wandered off into the mazes of shops and street and had somehow come to think on Remus. How utterly bonkers had he gone? Why in the name of Merlin had he walked away from that bird? Why in the name of Merlin had he wandered aimless? Why in the name of Merlin was he thinking about _Moony_ though all this?

It was approximately three fourths of the way through this internal line of questioning that Sirius found himself laden with sweet smelling and sweaty werewolf.

“Padfoot! You git, James was going mad looking for you! I don’t even know you’ll be shopping today and I still somehow end up in charge of you.”

Sirius straightened Remus, pulling him up to his own feet and his full height so that he loomed over Sirius in the shaded coolness of the alcove. The smile stretching across Remus’s face would have launched ten thousand ships in simpler times, of this Sirius was immediately sure. It was entirely impossible to look upon that smile, pulling at the various scabbed scratches and faded thin scars littering his face, and not feel a tug at the corners of his own lips.

“Been tanning, have you, Lupin? I would have thought your sun-starved skin could only burn fifteen minutes outside, but six years later, you still defy logic.”

Remus’s browned skin was lovely, really. Sirius had always envied that quality in his friend – where his skin turned an awful, violent shade of red when he forgot his suntan potion, Remus’s turned from a creamy, often ink-stained pale into the sort of perfected tawny muggles paid good money for.

Remus grinned at him. “The lifeguard was quite fit in the Canary Islands and one can read just as well out on the beach as he can in the hotel room.”

Throwing an arm over Remus’s shoulders as best he could with the sizable height difference between them, Sirius began maneuvering them back onto the street to find James. Poor bloke had been alone for quite some time now, and they had promised Mrs. Potter that they’d be meeting her with their school purchases in … forty five minutes now.

“Successful trip then?”

“You could say that.”

They passed children and eel’s eyes for sale and couples holding hands as they walked over the cobblestone and Sirius felt for the first time in weeks the various parts of his chest slipping into place and his tendons easing and he was so relieved to feel somewhat human again, he chose not to read too far into what brought it on. He was seeing Remus again, unexpectedly, and it felt so much like he was coming home in a way he hadn’t felt since last year around this time when they returned to Hogwarts.

“What, no details?”

“I went to the Canary Islands. Had a lovely time reading by the water. Finished three books and made a bit of headway on the reading for McGonagall this year. Came home to my letter and high tailed it here before my mum could talk herself into buying me new robes. I, however, did not know that the most high Padfoot and Prongs would be meandering in Diagon Alley as well. James found me by Flourish and Blotts and hardly said six words to me before he sent me off looking for you. I think he caught sight of Evans, personally, but – ”

“I was really hoping for something more along the lines of: I met this lifeguard and I shagged him behind the pool house and it was bloody fantastic and I’m so sorry I didn’t mention it in my letters.”

“This ‘living vicariously through me’ business has gone farther than you originally intended, hasn’t it?”

Sirius sniffed, lifting his head high into the air. “Mr. Black may neither confirm nor deny without some kind of plea deal.”

“I didn’t shag the lifeguard.”

“Remus! Such dishonor on the noble house of Gryffindor, randy house of lions and mischief making! How could you fail so completely to uphold – ”

“I shagged his brother.”

Sirius pulled up short, the hand he’d been resting innocently on the space where Remus’s neck met his shoulder contracting so as to bring Remus to a stop as well.

“Oh, you dirty, filthy boy,” Sirius grinned, smirked, put every awful, sexual thought he’d thought in the past six or so months into the look he leveled at Remus in that moment.

“The brother was hotter,” Remus shrugged, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “He seemed to be into the whole ‘rugged outsider’ thing he thought I had going.” Remus gestured to his face, to the litany of marks that marred his skin.

“Did he even _speak_ to you before his pulled his trousers down?” Sirius barked, laughter bubbling in his chest as they moved again, weaving between patrons and pedestrians.

“ _Yes_. He was sweet. A muggle. One of those poetry and cuddling afterward types. It was nice.”

“And?”

Remus side stepped an elderly witch, packages rustling from where they hung over his shoulder, and gave Sirius A Look. It bore a suspicious familiarity to his ‘Goddammit, Sirius, It’s None of Your Goddamn Business You Utter Berk’ Look, but Sirius threw out this theory due to improbability. Remus knew after all that bro code stated all sexual encounters were property of the group. James had come up with that one all the way back in second year, when Sirius wouldn’t tell him which bird he snogged before the Slytherin-Hufflepuff quidditch game.

“And it was nice. Why so interested, Padfoot?” Remus grinned at him and Sirius knew, in the deep down parts of his bones, that he had missed that grin more than late nights and roaring fireplaces and long, twisting corridors.

“No reason.”

***

Time passed at the Potters’ in a strange sort of way. Sirius felt the remainder of his summer while away like the world’s fastest molasses, each morning dragging into each afternoon before Sirius found himself in his borrowed bed, pulling the sheets over his head and wondering how he’d passed the day almost before he blinked.

Before it seemed two hours had gone by, two weeks had flown and left Sirius and James perched atop the rooftop Sirius had first contemplated his place in the house below his feet. Between them, a bottle of firewhiskey rolled to and fro, bound by the long stretch of their ribs, in the whistling wind. The sky hung low and hot and Sirius felt sleepy and swollen and swishing.

“Las’ one,” James slurred at him, an arm draped over his eyes to shield the brilliant gold of the sunset.

“Last what?”

“Las’ las’ day of summer.”

Sirius frowned. “Suppose you’re right.”

Turning his head, Sirius took in James’s profile. It had been at least a fortnight since he last shaved and the stubble on his cheeks looked unruly and utterly cool. If Sirius were so inclined, he might even go so far as to say it made James look even more fit.

“Think we’ll miss it?”

“Dunno, mate. Can’t think straight ‘bout much of anything right now.”

“Try.”

James lifted the forearm from his eyes. Regarding Sirius with furrowed brows and a slight downturn in his lips, he pulled himself forward, his torso leaving the comfort of the shingles, heaving himself upright.

“I think so. Not in the sense we’ll want to be back. Because – because I honestly think life can only get better with age. ‘S sort of like, like wine. I don’t know what I’m saying righ’ now. I think we’ll miss this in the sense we don’t have to, have to worry. And that’s nice.” James glanced over to him. “’Though maybe it’s just me who hasn’t had to worry. You had a right rough year, Padfoot.”

“Wouldn’t change a minute of it.”

“Just ‘cause you wouldn’t change it, doesn’t mean you don’t feel about it.”

Sirius didn’t answer, cast his eyes out on the open fields of flora he couldn’t put a name to if he tried and prayed the emotions he felt stirring in his stomach didn’t play across his features, the emotions he’d never really laid to rest, but rather simply laid down for the while as exhaustion flooded his mind. Remus could meander these things in his head for ages, but Sirius had no such ability.

“Evans best be on guard this year,” James remarked into their silence. He glanced over at Sirius, the smile stretched across his cheeks telling Sirius all he needed to know, that whispers and advice and a pat on the shoulder all lay waiting should he want them. “It’s our last year. Suppose I should use all my best tricks to win her this year.”

“You know where I sleep, mate. If you need my assistance … ”

“I lie, you know. It’s going to be a busy year and, honestly, if Evans hasn’t bit yet,” James trailed off, shrugging with an odd sort of set to his lips.

“Mate.” Sirius hobbled to his elbows. “Take another drink. You’re too sober if you’re talking about giving up Evans. Far too reasonable discussion to be having on this, the last of our summer nights.”

“Suppose you’re right,” James murmured, bringing the bottle to his lips. “Suppose you’re right.” He took a drink.


End file.
